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We only keep hearing of how campus recruiters – companies chasing talent – have used the power of twitter to build their company brands, and also create loads of visibility for their campus recruitment initiatives.

Now, in 2013, its imminent that colleges use twitter to showcase their talent to the outside world – it’s important not just for the sake of doing it – but to position the campus, college/university and its students as great prospective employees.

Twitter and other social media are one of the ways colleges can make sure that they stand out – with the proliferation of science and professional colleges/universities in a country like India, and the reduced intake expected in the much sought after information technology/IT enabled services businesses, organizations no longer would want to visit campuses all and sundry. HR and hiring managers responsible for campus initiatives will only be choosier, and only be willing to look at institutes where the ‘ employ-ability’ factor is relatively very high.

So, it’s time that campuses, placement, coordinators and students took a plunge into how they can effectively use twitter to position their ‘brand’ as a place with students with diverse employ-ability skills, and hold great promise to organizations of the future, and the HR/hiring managers.

Campus hiring managers can look at even rolling out highlights of the student profile in various lines of study, tweet their placement brochure to all the targeted and top organizations, and exchange information on specifics of the skills looked for, the number of students with the targeted ‘employable skills’ and so on. The extent to which information can be showcased is only limited by the bouquet of skills sought for.

English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Individual student accomplishments which are unique and note-worthy, case studies and research papers by the students, pod-casts where students showcase their unique skills and abilities… there are a host of variations that can go out through the twitter handle,

And with the power of student social networks, this kind of talent broadcast will give a great branding opportunity for the campus, its programs, and the talent they churn out.

With a little thought, mixed with the power of student innovation, this is one of the ways that campus branding initiatives will fetch long term positioning and talent visibility – drawing organizations like butterfly takes to flowers with honey.

So, is your campus brand (campus hiring program) on twitter and social media?

If you are in India, or even elsewhere in the globe, you would have sure heard of Koodamkulam, which sometime back was the epicentre of brewing trouble, with the protests by the local populace snowballing into a mass movement. While what and who is propelling and catalyzing this people aggression (and any such community driven flare up anywhere) are complex questions, the only savior in such occasions can be a very pro-active communication/PR strategy by the authorities, and all PR professionals involved in containing any such ‘citizen movement’.

While the in-situ circumstances can differ from place to place and country to country, there is some amount of standardization in the communication strategy that can be followed with rigor. These are essentially aimed at not muddying the situation in the run up to the final citizen flare-up and also in the course of any such agitation.

Communications committee – This committee shall draw people from all the stakeholders and various interest groups – a judicious blend of experts to with the kind of plant/industry, with equal representation by the locals, who perceive them as the affected community.

Isolate the non-stake holders – Any agitation or public movement gets precipitated and turns rudderless when people who are not connected with the local interests move in to garner some political mileage, and in turn hijack the entire local movement. A prudent strategy would be to keep watch for such vested interests in any public agitation. In handling such agitations, isolating the non-stakeholders by consistent means of ‘direct’ engagement with the locals is the key. The goal must be to earn trust, address the genuine concerns, and get all the fringe elements out of the game.

Form locals committees – It’s never too late to completely involve every bit of the local community, when the situation looks like it might spiral out of hand, even remotely. The authorities and communicators must use every tool in the communications armor to reach out to the locals. Communicate to them that the authorities are willing to address every single concern/fear that may be in the mind of every one, who thinks he or she may be affected. This must be a sustained exercise, with no timelines, and the intent must be to understand what exactly are the perceived fears that loom large in the minds of the people in that area. Those which are well founded must be answered with facts, and those ill founded and planted by miscreants can be quashed to the dustbin.

Unleash a carpet-bombing local PR campaign – This might sound too aggressive – yet, in situations of public agitations, there is no rescue other than to communicate more and more. A crisis in the best time to speak out must be the PR mantra – while the opposite in reality causes incalculable harm to success of any well laid communication strategy. Make use of not just the national media in that place, but make sure every local reach to communicate is made use of – vernacular media, local radio, community radio, billboards, leaflets – just every possible tool to reach door-to-door in the region. Remember – if the fringe can manage a perception that there is a massive opposition to the plant or public amenity, the authorities can plan a turnaround in that perception with a well planned and executed strategy.

This is a broad communication template – a combination of all these above will make sure that a space is created for a people centric dialog, which would lead to a solution to any citizen agitation.

Earning trust, end of the day, is the result of a sustained PR effort, with a conscience.

My country, India, has seen a spur of online activism in the recent few years, thanks to the growing disillusionment of the much touted urban middle class, and a perceived failure of the present country administration on a whole range of issues – from corruption, which has swept the carpet under the polity to law and order – where my sisters do not feel safe to step out late evenings, right at the heart of my national capital.

Some notable examples of recent online activism

The movement, India against corruption which sprung into existence thanks to the moral leadership of Anna Hazare, has used online tools in a big way, to spread the message across, gather people, and consolidate views and crowd source protest ideas. On twitter, they have mad e of numerous handles, the primary one being @janlokpal, and successfully built opinions.

In the protests against the recent moral assault and subsequent death of Delhi girl Nirbaya, by a gang of rogues on a moving bus, many groups and individuals used the social media to spread their angst against the establishment and the police, protesting consistent inaction. Some notable handles in this episode were activist @tajinderbagga who was the target of police action, and a girl activist who was arrested for joining the protests.

Online activists crowd sourced strong protest against a Gurgaon hotel hosting a singing even of notable Punjabi singer Honey Singh, whose lyrics provoked anger for their lewd views on women, in the light of events after the death of brave girl Nirbhaya.

(just to illustrate a few; twitter handles selective and not exhaustive)

The increasing spread of information through social media, and a large number of concerted online and offline activists spreading information to garner support for any cause that affects the common man is a new trend that is catching up swiftly in India and neighboring countries as well.

The establishment and the stakeholders who are the target of such activism, either out of compliance and deference to the views of people, or out of the fear that a cascading effect of the information on them from online to offline to the houses to the streets, will impact the credibility – are partly giving in to some demands as a result of online activism.

While the measurement of the effects of online activism will be a bit farfetched as of now, the day is not far when social media mavens will also find out means by which the on the ground impact of such efforts can be quantified and the impact measured.

While in India, online activism has only sprung into action only in more recent times, globally, the trend is in place at least for the past decade, and is only increasing/bound to increase by the day as the social media has proven to be a platform for swift dissemination of real time breaking news and events, and in many countries where democracy is nonexistent or in peril, where mobile devices in the hands of the affected, disgruntled and victimized, are the only means by which they make messages go viral – and for the global media to take note.

There’s also a raging debate that’s been going on since a while on whether online activism is really a cause for worry across the globe – questioning the likely effect isolated groups can have on ground realities. Malcolm Gladwell’s article in The Newyorker of Oct 4, 2010 http://nyr.kr/ap4hO1 stirred a social hornets’ nest, inviting a flurry of responses to the statement “ Social media can’t provide what social change has always required”.

Amongst the many interesting debates as a reply to Gladwells story, Erum Haider from neighboring Pakistan made very relevant and sort of ‘local’ responses to why social activism will make an impact and will stay on, and gain more power if used appropriately, for the right causes too. http://bit.ly/arngfb

With a fair amount of confidence, and the emerging nature of polity and demography in this part of the globe, one can say, with a fair amount of confidence that ‘social activism’ is indeed here to stay, and gain more strength as the clock ticks.

If you are a social media maven, ‘social media activism’ making J must be in your armor as well.

By the way, is it in the things to watch for in 2013 in your trend-watching list?

Although the word social media is being used in a broad sense, the question is more in the context of the 140 character powerhouse of information, Twitter!

Globally, and closer home too, celebrities and the common man alike have taken to tweeting as not just a habit, but a must do. The same can be extended to posts and views across the social space.

In the case of celebrities, even just a few tweets gets them thousands of followers. Along with that comes loads of scrutiny both by the media, and their followers/critics.

Celebrities use their status sometimes to a great advantage; at the same time, some of them tend to shoot them in their own legs by their over enthusiasm, and also in their bit of recklessness or call it packed emotions. In a nation of a billion views on any topic in the universe that is India, such reckless tweets land the celebrities into controversies, and at times land them in litigation.

There are a whole bunch of celebrities who use ghost tweeters, with their views on issues be known, and the actual time and line of tweeting is decided by the tweeter who happens to be a specialist in communication. In such cases, the specialist adds in a sense of context, and takes care to see that the sensitivities are not hurt, in issues of import.

Such specialized intervention and management ought to be seen in the light of the power of social to amplify, interpret, at times misinterpret what is said – all this in the speed of light (or call in the speed of the net!)

While there can be questions on whether such a tendency to specialist manage or agency manage social media is right, ethical, and stands for authenticity, there can be no doubt that when there is so much rapt attention to every single tweet and word in the tweet uttered (or feed/post in any social post), a specialist intervention in managing such social media could be handy.

As communications outreach professional, what are your thoughts to share?